According to the annual report, Reliance Industries’ media and entertainment takings were Rs 10,826 crore during FY24, which was up 49% compared to the previous year, in which it had realized Rs 7,266 crore.
Rising cost pressures for this company will reduce growth rates in this segment, with fragmented viewership, in every sense of the term.
Saying, “intense competition has not only resulted in escalation in content costs, especially for sports and movie rights, but also due to which it has led to viewership fragmentation.”.
Among the other challenges are macro- economic linkages and piracy. “India’s ad market is inherently linked to macroeconomic growth, necessitating creation of a robust business model insulated from fluctuations in the economy. Despite content piracy seeing a significant decline, it remains a critical challenge in generating commensurate return on investments,” it states.
As per the report, the digital news portfolio has engagement of 227 million users per month, states the Comscore MMX report. The television network has a viewership share of 12.7% (including associate ETV). Average monthly reach for its OTT platform, JioCinema, as per data.ai is 225 million.
“Reliance has taken big strides in scaling-up the media and entertainment vertical in the last year, from initiating the merger of TV18 and E18 (Moneycontrol) with Network 18 to onboarding a strategic investor in Viacom18, to announcing partnership with Disney, all these initiatives will not only help to capture the growth opportunities being presented by India’s rapidly growing media landscape but also to shape its evolution,” the company said in the report.
In the year, the company entered into an agreement with The Walt Disney Company to create a joint venture that combines the businesses of Viacom 18 and Star India. The combined M&E company of this transaction will thereby form one of the largest in India, culling together the most iconic media assets in the country in the entertainment space — for instance, Colors, StarPlus, StarGOLD — and in sports, such as Star Sports and Sports18, with access to the most sought-after events on television and its digital platforms: JioCinema and Hotstar. The Company will also purchase a 13.01 percent equity stake on a fully diluted basis of Viacom18 from Paramount Global, thereby increasing the holding of the Company in Viacom18 to 70.49 percent on a fully diluted basis. The JV would be controlled by the Company and owned 16.34 percent by the Company, 46.82 percent by Viacom18 and 36.84 percent by Disney. Reliance has committed to invest Rs 11,500 crore into the JV for its growth plan.
The idea has been to consolidate TV18, E18 (Moneycontrol), and other digital assets under a single umbrella with Network18, integrating TV and Digital news assets into a single company to simplify the holding structure for creating India’s largest and most integrated news media conglomerate.
“Live sports has always been one of the most important genres for consumers across the world. During the last year, sports streaming on digital platforms reached record-breaking viewership scores. Its vast demographic attraction and an unprecedented ability to reach literally millions of audiences at the same time, with high engagement levels, ensures a constant flow of traffic,” the report says.
The company said that JioCinema was the most rapidly growing OTT in the country, “outpacing all competitors in terms of expansion and user acquisition.”
The operating revenue of the Network18 Group for the year rose by 49.4% Y-o-Y, driven by robust growth across both Entertainment and News segments. The businesses had made considerable investments during the year in scaling up its new verticals, Sports and Digital, which had an impact on the profitability.
“Networks18’s digital news portfolio continued to be the #2 online news publisher in India, with leadership in the vernacular genre.
We narrowed gap with leader to ~15% (vs 40% at the beginning of the year) in terms of reach. Remain No. 1 platform in India for financial news. Also, transaction-based products—lending and fixed deposits launched on the platform. Firstpost pivoted to a digital-first, video-focused brand, and consumers took the change seriously, with subscribers surpassing the 4 million mark on YouTube. A paid-up digital news site in India posted at #1, Moneycontrol Pro said. On its television network, the report mentions, through BARC data, that while the flagship channel, Colors, touched the highest-ever share in the last 12 years, it consistently closed the gap with the leader. The year saw Colors Cineplex showing gains in share and ranking. In the case of Colors Kannada, this continued to be strong at #2. Its Kids, English and Youth portfolios continued to be #1 in their categories.
